By These Hands : A Documentary History of African American Humanism

The Black church is often praised for its contribution to Black culture and politics.

More recently, Islam has been recognized as an important force in African American liberation.

This text demonstrates the crucial, often overlooked role that humanism has played in African American struggles for dignity, power and justice.

Anthony Pinn collects examples of African American humanism and shows how its embrace by a variety of prominent figures in African American thought and letters has served as the basis for activism and resistance to American racism and sexism.

Pinn uncovers little known treasures of African American literature such as "The Slave Narrative of James Hay", in which an abused slave decides to rely on himself rather than God for deliverance from the horrors of slavery, and a letter from Frederick Douglass which scandalized his religious friends.

Essays by Zora Neal Hurston and Richard Wright demonstrate the profound influence of humanism in the Harlem Renaissance, and pieces by James Farmer, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Huey Newton show humanism's impact on the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.